New Kids On The Block - 'Summertime'
Post categories: Reviews
| 13:17 UK time, Thursday, 28 August 2008
Under normal circumstances, even though I tend to do a lot of my ChartBlog research by browsing music videos on YouTube, I try not to let the content of the video influence my review, because the video is not the song, obviously. There can be exceptions to this rule - if, say, a song comes with a truly brilliant and inspirational video that truly gives the song new meaning, or perhaps where a great song is let down by an utterly rubbish video, but both of those scenarios would merit at most a passing mention.
So I'm breaking protocol a bit to talk about the video for this song in my review, but: it's really quite poor. It's just a lot of NKOTB walking around in white linen outfits, and occasionally whirling some girl around on a beach, and then a bit of a half-hearted dance routine at the end. It was so distracting on my first viewing that I had to go back a second time and listen to the song while deliberately NOT watching the video to see if that made it sound any better, because I really had not been impressed before that.
And it did, a little bit. But not enough, I don't think. The biggest problem with this song is that the sense of half-heartedness so evident in the dance routine at the end of the video pervades through the entire song - it sounds like the whole thing was produced while everyone had one eye on the clock. The vocals are fine, but they lack pizazz. The melody is basically a tinny synth ripoff of 'Bittersweet Symphony' (which was in itself lifted from the Andrew Oldham Orchestra's recording of the Rolling Stones' 'The Last Time', but that's not for here). Even the "woah-oh"s in the chorus just have absolutely no fire in them. The song's pleasant, hummable even, but I couldn't shake the slight feeling of anger that I got after listening to it that it just should have been so much better than it actually is, if only anyone involved had cared about it a little bit more.
Still, it's heartening to see one of the biggest boybands from my formative years still managing to get together and record stuff. And most of them have aged well, so kudos for that, guys. But you still need to try harder with the actual music stuff.
CD Released: September 1st
(Steve Perkins)
Comment number 1.
At 2nd Sep 2008, cyberjohnbrown wrote:poor, really poor.
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Comment number 2.
At 2nd Sep 2008, Brianface wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 3.
At 20th Jan 2009, scooby8582 wrote:I must Say I went to see NKOTB on Friday and they were superb. It has been over 15 yrs since they last toured and i thought that they were as fit then as they were 15 yrs ago. A very good concert guys!!!!
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Comment number 4.
At 26th Jan 2009, Brockie76 wrote:Will people sort out their comments!
I have seen NKOTB twice on the UK tour and they just get better. Ok so it wasnt the best come back song ever, but it is still great.
The whole album, The Block, is great. It has get up with the times and does them justice.
LET'S GET THIS!
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Comment number 5.
At 26th Jan 2009, Fraser McAlpine - wrote:Yeah, people! Stop dropping your comments all over the internet in a haphazard fashion. It's untidy.
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Comment number 6.
At 27th Jan 2009, dennisjunior1 wrote:Congrats to New Kids on the Block about its upcoming released...
~Dennis Junior~
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